Guwahati: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday asserted that Assam and the Northeastern region marched ahead on the path of peace and development during the eight years of BJP rule under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Seventy years of Congress rule since Independence had pushed the Northeast region to violence and anarchy while during the last eight years, Modi's leadership helped the region join with the mainstream, Shah claimed after inaugurating the party's newly constructed state office in the Assam capital.
"During the Congress regime, there was no peace, development, or growth and even the culture of the region suffered. But, between 2014 and 2022, it is our good fortune that the Prime Minister has taken the region to greater heights of development. Modiji is like a great banyan tree under whose shade, the region is on its path of fulfilling the development goals set by him'', he said. The Union minister claimed that as a student activist he had come to the state several times during the Assam agitation against illegal infiltrators, and "on many occasions was severely beaten up under the directives of the then Congress chief minister Hiteswar Saikia." The BJP government has established peace in Assam with 9,000 people laying down arms, he said. The prime minister has trebled the budget for the NE region, which has ushered in infrastructural development in all sectors, the senior BJP leader said.
The number of militants in the state was as high as 8,700 during 2006-14 while violence claimed the lives of 500 security personnel in the same period, Shah said.
However, the number of militants came down
to 250 and 127 security
personnel lost their lives
due to violence between 2014 and 2022.